Bait the devil, p.14
Bait the Devil, page 14
“Because you’re, like, the third person to come looking for him.”
A niggling of alarm shot through Vivian. She walked back to the blonde and mounted the single step onto the portico.
“Two other people were here?”
“Yeah. Two men. Different times. He doesn’t get male visitors. If you know what I mean?”
Vivian got the gist. “What times were these men here?”
“One guy last night, before I left for work. Charley was home and let the guy in. They must have known each other.”
“What did this guy look like?” Vivian pressed.
The blonde shrugged. “It was dark, and Charley didn’t have any lights on. They were going inside as I was coming out. He was a big guy, I do remember that. Dressed kinda nice too. Sorry, I couldn’t tell you what he looked like exactly.”
“That’s okay. What about the second guy?”
“He was yesterday afternoon. Charley wasn’t here.”
And he wasn’t at work either. So where had he gone?
“Did you see this guy?”
The neighbor nodded. “I’m usually up around four, and I heard the guy banging on Charley’s door. I was going to confront him about being so loud until I saw what he looked like. I stayed inside and waited for him to leave.”
“And he looked like?”
“Like someone put him through a woodchipper. Scars all over his face, and he wore a black hoodie. Who wears a hoodie in the summer?”
Caleb? Vivian recalled her own revulsion at the sight of Caleb’s damaged face. Maybe it was him. Maybe it wasn’t.
“People are strange. I’ll give you that,” Vivian told the blonde. “Thank you for telling me this.”
“Seriously? Is Charley in trouble?”
“Not that I’m aware. I just need to speak with him about a case.”
The neighbor nodded hesitantly. “Okay.” She returned to her own home. She paused and looked back at Vivian, frowned, then closed the door.
Vivian hurried to her car. She was checking the YMCA aquatic center next. That niggling in her was gaining a friend called panic.
The drive over was hindered by noontime traffic. Stuck at a light, she made the call she’d been debating.
Larrabee picked up on the second ring. “Counselor Montgomery.”
“Sergeant, are you free at this time?”
“Stuck in the office doing paperwork. And reading through those journals Roman told me our guy Porter left behind.”
“Finding anything of interest?”
“Not really. ’Course, I’ve only read through the ones where he’s talking about horse rations and rotations and crap like that.”
The light turned green, and traffic crawled forward.
“Would you mind meeting me at the Boise YMCA aquatic center?” she asked.
“Thinking of getting in a few midday laps in the pool?” Larrabee’s calm and collected voice wasn’t doing Vivian’s nerves any good.
“Not really.” She relayed her suspicions and what the neighbor had told her. “I’m hoping I’m just being paranoid, and he decided to get in a game of golf today.”
“But you know full well that’s not the case. I’ll meet you there. Do not go inside until I’m with you.”
“It’s a public area,” she countered.
“Which don’t mean jack shit to someone who intends to do harm. Wait for me.”
The man was as bad as T.J. or Dot. If Vivian had learned anything in the last few days, it was to never disregard an order from Sergeant Cassius Larrabee.
*
She only had to wait ten minutes for Larrabee to arrive. Ten agonizing minutes.
In that time, she’d circled the parking lot and didn’t find Charley’s vehicle, a white double cab pickup. She parked and watched people come and go. A lot of elderly folks and working adults on lunch break took advantage of the near empty pool while all the families used the outdoor pools and water parks around the city.
When Larrabee finally arrived in his state-funded vehicle, Vivian had gnawed off two fingernails.
“Do you need to remain in your vehicle while I interrogate the employees?” Larrabee asked as she met him at the front entrance.
“Hell no. I’ll remove the rest of my fingernails before you finish. I’m coming in.”
“Suit yourself.” He held open the door for her and matched her stride to the front desk.
“I asked one of my people to check all the golf courses in case he had gone for a few rounds,” he told her.
“Thank you for that. It’ll save time searching for him.”
“Tell me why you think something bad has happened to him?”
They both stopped walking.
Vivian faced him. “You ever get that special sense something is wrong?” she asked.
“All the time. I’m a cop.”
“While I waited for you to get here, I went over everything the neighbor told me. I think Cade was looking for Charley because Hal told him about the second set of files. He needs to take possession of those if he’s ever to keep his real identity out of the wrong hands.”
Larrabee nodded. “Makes sense. Who do you think the second guy is?”
“Halloway Jones.”
“Think you’re onto something there, Counselor.”
They continued on to the front desk and were greeted by a bored high schooler.
Larrabee flashed his badge dangling from a stout chain around his neck. “Sergeant Larrabee, state police. I’m here looking for a man.”
The teenaged boy frowned. “You’ll have to be more specific. We get a lot of men in here.”
“This one would have been here early this morning between the times of five thirty and seven,” Larrabee replied.
Vivian set her phone down on the countertop with Charley’s professional firm photo pulled up. “He looks like this.”
The teen squinted at the screen then shook his head. “Never seen him before. But I don’t work the desk in the early morning. Hang on.” He picked up a desktop phone and punched a single number on the pad. “Yeah, there’s a cop up front looking for someone … I don’t know.” A moment later he replaced the handset. “My manager is coming.”
Two minutes later, a well-tanned, lean man in a pair of white shorts and a lime-green polo emerged from the backside of the reception area. He held out his hand to Larrabee first, then Vivian.
“Jake Starns, I’m the manager. What can I help you with?”
Vivian held up her phone. “Have you seen this guy today? He’s a fellow lawyer in my firm, and we haven’t seen him in at least two days.”
“An eyewitness puts him leaving his home to come here for his daily morning swim,” Larrabee followed up.
Jake studied the image, frowning. “I don’t think I have. But then, there’s a lot of people who come and go here that I don’t see. Umm, come with me.”
He led them back to his cramped office. Once behind his desk, he sat and brought up his computer. “What’s his name? I can look up his membership activity.”
Vivian rattled off Charley’s full name. After a quick search, Jake was able to find the information.
“It looks like he scanned his member ID at 5:23.” Jake squinted at the screen. “But there’s no log-out time. That’s weird.”
“Why’s that?” Larrabee asked.
Jake swiveled his seat around to face them. “Certain member plans charge by the hour of usage. Mr. Ash uses that plan. He typically has a two-hour usage window. Today, there’s no card swipe to check him out.”
“How many people use the pool that early in the morning?” Vivian asked.
Jake returned to his computer and accessed the data. “During the week, we see anywhere from ten to twenty-some patrons during those hours.”
“Today?” Larrabee asked.
“Hmmm, it was a slow morning. We had … five.”
“Any camera footage we can see?” Larrabee asked.
Jake clicked away on his computer. “We have cameras set up outside the locker rooms, around the pool for safety measures, and by the exit doors. Nowhere else.” After a few more clacks, he rotated his computer screen. “I’ve brought up the footage from 5:20.”
Vivian leaned down beside Larrabee and watched. The camera was angled to get a full scope of the glass walls and the employee-only access door leading directly into the pool, and next to it the men’s and women’s locker rooms. The seconds ticked past slowly on an empty passageway to the locker rooms. Then Charley sauntered into the screen. He entered the men’s room like he hadn’t a care in the world. It was a typical morning for him. Ten minutes, then twenty, then thirty minutes went by and no one else entered or exited the locker room.
Jake explained that the locker rooms exited in the pool area so the patrons didn’t track water in the main halls. Larrabee had Jake advance the recording to about the time Charley should have exited the locker room. After twenty minutes had crept past, Larrabee asked Jake to advance it farther. A quick two hours later and still no Charley leaving the locker room, only two other men entering and two women in that timeframe.
“Pool cameras?” Vivian asked.
Jake pulled those up. There they spotted Charley leaving the locker room and entering the pool area. He chatted it up with the lifeguard before diving into the pool. He did a full hour of laps. After another quick chat with the lifeguard, Charley headed into the locker room once more. They watched the next few hours in quick time to see if he came out of the locker rooms and left by the pool exits. No Charley. The four other patrons were the only ones to show up at the pool.
“He never came out again.” Larrabee straightened. “Are there any exits in the locker rooms?”
“No. In order to make sure our most vulnerable patrons are not attacked or exploited, we have no outside access.”
“There are exit doors around the pool,” Vivian pointed out.
“Those are locked from the outside so people can’t sneak in to use the pool.”
“What time does the pool officially open?”
“Five a.m.,” Jake replied.
“Did anyone enter the locker room before Charley?”
Jake backed up the recording; no one entered before Charley. The first person to access the pool was the lifeguard, entering through the glass employee-only door next to the locker rooms.
“He didn’t just vanish,” Vivian said.
“What times do the cameras start recording?” Larrabee asked.
“They’re programmed to start at four a.m., right as the employee scheduled to open up comes in. They stop recording at ten p.m., a full hour after the building is closed for the day.”
“Back it up to opening time,” Larrabee ordered.
Jake did, and they saw the employee reserved to open up appear and unlock the locker rooms and the main pool entrance from the hall. Ten minutes later, the camera blacked out.
“What the—” Jake clicked on a few things and replayed the moment again.
Again, the camera went black. Two minutes passed before it came online.
“Bingo,” Larrabee said. “I need access to the locker room.”
“I’m coming too,” Vivian said.
“Whoa, wait. I can’t—”
“Don’t you dare tell me you can’t let a woman into the men’s locker room.”
Jake paled under that perfect tan. “It’s not that. There’s a lot of people here. I can’t just kick them out.”
“Tell them it’s a police matter. Because it is.”
Jake sighed. He picked up the phone and hit a button. “Yeah, it’s me. Get everyone out of the locker rooms … The police are here … Just do it.” He set the handset down. “Give them five minutes.”
Vivian, at Larrabee’s side, stood outside the locker room entrance and smiled at the half-dressed, confused men who stumbled out into the hallway. Once the last guy had been shooed out and an employee was stationed at the passageway between the locker room and the pool, Larrabee and Vivian entered the men’s room.
“What are you looking for?” she asked, scanning the white-tiled room smelling heavily of pool chemicals.
“Check the toilet stalls and the showers for anything that looks remotely off,” he said, standing before the lockers.
“You and I both know that if there was something off about the stalls and showers, someone would have reported it.”
One side of the lockers were the half-sized kind, just big enough to hang a gym bag inside and other clothing articles. The other side, the ones Larrabee studied, were the full-sized lockers. Three of them had key padlocks on them. He went to work opening all the unlocked doors. Vivian joined in, finding each of the ones she opened either contained some pool-goer’s belongings or was empty.
Jake stepped inside and hovered near the doorway.
“You have bolt cutters?” Larrabee asked when they had opened all the others.
Jake shook his head but walked over with a set of keys in his hand. “The locks belong to us.” He checked the back of each lock and found the corresponding key. Once he had each one unlocked, he stepped back.
Larrabee grasped Vivian’s hand as she reached for the nearest handle. “I’d rather you not.” He shook a finger at her when she went to protest. “Humor me, Counselor.”
Grudgingly, Vivian stepped away from the lockers and joined Jake.
Larrabee opened one locker then another. The third one he backed up and hung his head.
“We found Charley.”
Chapter Twenty
Follman was pleased when Dot and T.J. accepted his offer. Dot couldn’t decide if the bemused expression on Follman was from their acceptance or the fact he was setting them up for something. Her suspicions were further heightened when he didn’t even bother to haggle over their demand for a higher payout, per Eriksson’s insistence.
Follman did have a nonnegotiable in the deal. They had to use the helicopter he kept at the airport for the pickup. He also managed the green light for them to fly out immediately.
Follman’s helicopter, a Bell 525 Relentless, while meant for civilian use, couldn’t get much closer to a Black Hawk if it tried. A full row of seats was missing from the cabin, and the cockpit was blocked off from the back by a heavy curtain.
Why would they need seating in the back if drugs were being shuttled over the border?
Then there was another issue when flying the 525 Relentless.
Dot glared at the man tasked with prepping the copter for use and maintaining it. “You do realize I need a copilot.”
He shrugged. “I do what I’m told and that’s about it. If Mr. Follman wanted you to have ’nother, he’d have someone come.” He handed Dot a packet. “Here’s your flight information.”
Dot took the thin envelope and opened it. What the fuck was Follman playing at? These machines were hard enough to handle on a beautiful day with not a cloud in sight. Handicap her with no copilot and if she ran into turbulence or hit a wall with fatigue, they were looking at a downed helicopter.
She read through the single sheet of instructions that gave her the coordinates to the farm where the package was waiting for pickup. And one line of warning—
Stay out of range of radar detection.
Dot was hating this whole operation more and more.
She gave T.J. a hard stare. “Looks like you’re my second.”
“What do you expect me to do? I don’t know how to fly.”
“Start learning.”
Eriksson had warned them to stay off comms and keep to the flight plan. He was certain Follman had the copter wired and rigged with a tracker. Eriksson also directed that when they did talk to not to discuss anything from their personal lives they couldn’t fabricate.
Dot wouldn’t worry about that. She’d have her AC/DC soundtrack blaring through the cockpit and be completely focused on keeping this damn bird in the sky.
By midmorning, they were airborne en route to Challis, Idaho. More specifically, a huge farm northwest of the town nestled in the Salmon-Challis National Forest. They kept their chatter strictly to Dot walking T.J. through how to handle the helo if something were to happen.
As they passed the Idaho-Nevada state line, she deviated to the place where Follman had instructed her to refuel the helicopter. It was a long defunct airfield Follman and his people were able to acquire dirt cheap. He’d warned them to stay in the copter during the refuel. So, after she touched down on a resurfaced landing pad, she and T.J. remained in their seats.
While a bedraggled crew of two refueled the helicopter and did a quick once-over, Dot did her own check. Sitting there afforded their phones a chance to connect to a tower, and both chimed with messages.
Dot stared at the text from Vivian warning her that one of her colleagues had been murdered. A follow-up message from her cousin warned that the hunt had intensified for Cade Porter/Caleb Podolsky, whom they suspected of killing the lawyer.
“Shit,” T.J. said after reading his, then without a word, handed her his phone with a message from Larrabee.
Not only was Caleb suspected of killing the lawyer, he had also broken into Vivian’s apartment. Something her cousin had failed to mention to Dot.
One of the workers pounded on the window next to Dot and gave her the thumbs-up. She returned the gesture and handed T.J. his phone.
“We talk later” was all he said as she put the helicopter back into flight mode.
For the next two hours, she did her damnedest to stay focused on her flight path and not on the fact her cousin had come face-to-face with a trained killer, then couldn’t be bothered with informing her about it. She was going to bitch slap Vivian for that move.
T.J., too, kept his own council. Dot couldn’t tell by his features what he was thinking. Whatever thoughts were running rampant through his head, some of them better be ways to get them out of this mess.
As she drew closer to their destination, the farm came into sight. It looked … empty. There were a lot of buildings and paddocks and pastures, yet there didn’t seem to be any livestock. This time of day and during the summer, horses should be outside. In fact, there was a lack of farm equipment activity as well.
A summons from someone on the ground came through the comms. Dot relayed the required message to grant them unhindered passage onto the property. Cleared by the other end, she directed the copter to the place where the landing pad was located.
A niggling of alarm shot through Vivian. She walked back to the blonde and mounted the single step onto the portico.
“Two other people were here?”
“Yeah. Two men. Different times. He doesn’t get male visitors. If you know what I mean?”
Vivian got the gist. “What times were these men here?”
“One guy last night, before I left for work. Charley was home and let the guy in. They must have known each other.”
“What did this guy look like?” Vivian pressed.
The blonde shrugged. “It was dark, and Charley didn’t have any lights on. They were going inside as I was coming out. He was a big guy, I do remember that. Dressed kinda nice too. Sorry, I couldn’t tell you what he looked like exactly.”
“That’s okay. What about the second guy?”
“He was yesterday afternoon. Charley wasn’t here.”
And he wasn’t at work either. So where had he gone?
“Did you see this guy?”
The neighbor nodded. “I’m usually up around four, and I heard the guy banging on Charley’s door. I was going to confront him about being so loud until I saw what he looked like. I stayed inside and waited for him to leave.”
“And he looked like?”
“Like someone put him through a woodchipper. Scars all over his face, and he wore a black hoodie. Who wears a hoodie in the summer?”
Caleb? Vivian recalled her own revulsion at the sight of Caleb’s damaged face. Maybe it was him. Maybe it wasn’t.
“People are strange. I’ll give you that,” Vivian told the blonde. “Thank you for telling me this.”
“Seriously? Is Charley in trouble?”
“Not that I’m aware. I just need to speak with him about a case.”
The neighbor nodded hesitantly. “Okay.” She returned to her own home. She paused and looked back at Vivian, frowned, then closed the door.
Vivian hurried to her car. She was checking the YMCA aquatic center next. That niggling in her was gaining a friend called panic.
The drive over was hindered by noontime traffic. Stuck at a light, she made the call she’d been debating.
Larrabee picked up on the second ring. “Counselor Montgomery.”
“Sergeant, are you free at this time?”
“Stuck in the office doing paperwork. And reading through those journals Roman told me our guy Porter left behind.”
“Finding anything of interest?”
“Not really. ’Course, I’ve only read through the ones where he’s talking about horse rations and rotations and crap like that.”
The light turned green, and traffic crawled forward.
“Would you mind meeting me at the Boise YMCA aquatic center?” she asked.
“Thinking of getting in a few midday laps in the pool?” Larrabee’s calm and collected voice wasn’t doing Vivian’s nerves any good.
“Not really.” She relayed her suspicions and what the neighbor had told her. “I’m hoping I’m just being paranoid, and he decided to get in a game of golf today.”
“But you know full well that’s not the case. I’ll meet you there. Do not go inside until I’m with you.”
“It’s a public area,” she countered.
“Which don’t mean jack shit to someone who intends to do harm. Wait for me.”
The man was as bad as T.J. or Dot. If Vivian had learned anything in the last few days, it was to never disregard an order from Sergeant Cassius Larrabee.
*
She only had to wait ten minutes for Larrabee to arrive. Ten agonizing minutes.
In that time, she’d circled the parking lot and didn’t find Charley’s vehicle, a white double cab pickup. She parked and watched people come and go. A lot of elderly folks and working adults on lunch break took advantage of the near empty pool while all the families used the outdoor pools and water parks around the city.
When Larrabee finally arrived in his state-funded vehicle, Vivian had gnawed off two fingernails.
“Do you need to remain in your vehicle while I interrogate the employees?” Larrabee asked as she met him at the front entrance.
“Hell no. I’ll remove the rest of my fingernails before you finish. I’m coming in.”
“Suit yourself.” He held open the door for her and matched her stride to the front desk.
“I asked one of my people to check all the golf courses in case he had gone for a few rounds,” he told her.
“Thank you for that. It’ll save time searching for him.”
“Tell me why you think something bad has happened to him?”
They both stopped walking.
Vivian faced him. “You ever get that special sense something is wrong?” she asked.
“All the time. I’m a cop.”
“While I waited for you to get here, I went over everything the neighbor told me. I think Cade was looking for Charley because Hal told him about the second set of files. He needs to take possession of those if he’s ever to keep his real identity out of the wrong hands.”
Larrabee nodded. “Makes sense. Who do you think the second guy is?”
“Halloway Jones.”
“Think you’re onto something there, Counselor.”
They continued on to the front desk and were greeted by a bored high schooler.
Larrabee flashed his badge dangling from a stout chain around his neck. “Sergeant Larrabee, state police. I’m here looking for a man.”
The teenaged boy frowned. “You’ll have to be more specific. We get a lot of men in here.”
“This one would have been here early this morning between the times of five thirty and seven,” Larrabee replied.
Vivian set her phone down on the countertop with Charley’s professional firm photo pulled up. “He looks like this.”
The teen squinted at the screen then shook his head. “Never seen him before. But I don’t work the desk in the early morning. Hang on.” He picked up a desktop phone and punched a single number on the pad. “Yeah, there’s a cop up front looking for someone … I don’t know.” A moment later he replaced the handset. “My manager is coming.”
Two minutes later, a well-tanned, lean man in a pair of white shorts and a lime-green polo emerged from the backside of the reception area. He held out his hand to Larrabee first, then Vivian.
“Jake Starns, I’m the manager. What can I help you with?”
Vivian held up her phone. “Have you seen this guy today? He’s a fellow lawyer in my firm, and we haven’t seen him in at least two days.”
“An eyewitness puts him leaving his home to come here for his daily morning swim,” Larrabee followed up.
Jake studied the image, frowning. “I don’t think I have. But then, there’s a lot of people who come and go here that I don’t see. Umm, come with me.”
He led them back to his cramped office. Once behind his desk, he sat and brought up his computer. “What’s his name? I can look up his membership activity.”
Vivian rattled off Charley’s full name. After a quick search, Jake was able to find the information.
“It looks like he scanned his member ID at 5:23.” Jake squinted at the screen. “But there’s no log-out time. That’s weird.”
“Why’s that?” Larrabee asked.
Jake swiveled his seat around to face them. “Certain member plans charge by the hour of usage. Mr. Ash uses that plan. He typically has a two-hour usage window. Today, there’s no card swipe to check him out.”
“How many people use the pool that early in the morning?” Vivian asked.
Jake returned to his computer and accessed the data. “During the week, we see anywhere from ten to twenty-some patrons during those hours.”
“Today?” Larrabee asked.
“Hmmm, it was a slow morning. We had … five.”
“Any camera footage we can see?” Larrabee asked.
Jake clicked away on his computer. “We have cameras set up outside the locker rooms, around the pool for safety measures, and by the exit doors. Nowhere else.” After a few more clacks, he rotated his computer screen. “I’ve brought up the footage from 5:20.”
Vivian leaned down beside Larrabee and watched. The camera was angled to get a full scope of the glass walls and the employee-only access door leading directly into the pool, and next to it the men’s and women’s locker rooms. The seconds ticked past slowly on an empty passageway to the locker rooms. Then Charley sauntered into the screen. He entered the men’s room like he hadn’t a care in the world. It was a typical morning for him. Ten minutes, then twenty, then thirty minutes went by and no one else entered or exited the locker room.
Jake explained that the locker rooms exited in the pool area so the patrons didn’t track water in the main halls. Larrabee had Jake advance the recording to about the time Charley should have exited the locker room. After twenty minutes had crept past, Larrabee asked Jake to advance it farther. A quick two hours later and still no Charley leaving the locker room, only two other men entering and two women in that timeframe.
“Pool cameras?” Vivian asked.
Jake pulled those up. There they spotted Charley leaving the locker room and entering the pool area. He chatted it up with the lifeguard before diving into the pool. He did a full hour of laps. After another quick chat with the lifeguard, Charley headed into the locker room once more. They watched the next few hours in quick time to see if he came out of the locker rooms and left by the pool exits. No Charley. The four other patrons were the only ones to show up at the pool.
“He never came out again.” Larrabee straightened. “Are there any exits in the locker rooms?”
“No. In order to make sure our most vulnerable patrons are not attacked or exploited, we have no outside access.”
“There are exit doors around the pool,” Vivian pointed out.
“Those are locked from the outside so people can’t sneak in to use the pool.”
“What time does the pool officially open?”
“Five a.m.,” Jake replied.
“Did anyone enter the locker room before Charley?”
Jake backed up the recording; no one entered before Charley. The first person to access the pool was the lifeguard, entering through the glass employee-only door next to the locker rooms.
“He didn’t just vanish,” Vivian said.
“What times do the cameras start recording?” Larrabee asked.
“They’re programmed to start at four a.m., right as the employee scheduled to open up comes in. They stop recording at ten p.m., a full hour after the building is closed for the day.”
“Back it up to opening time,” Larrabee ordered.
Jake did, and they saw the employee reserved to open up appear and unlock the locker rooms and the main pool entrance from the hall. Ten minutes later, the camera blacked out.
“What the—” Jake clicked on a few things and replayed the moment again.
Again, the camera went black. Two minutes passed before it came online.
“Bingo,” Larrabee said. “I need access to the locker room.”
“I’m coming too,” Vivian said.
“Whoa, wait. I can’t—”
“Don’t you dare tell me you can’t let a woman into the men’s locker room.”
Jake paled under that perfect tan. “It’s not that. There’s a lot of people here. I can’t just kick them out.”
“Tell them it’s a police matter. Because it is.”
Jake sighed. He picked up the phone and hit a button. “Yeah, it’s me. Get everyone out of the locker rooms … The police are here … Just do it.” He set the handset down. “Give them five minutes.”
Vivian, at Larrabee’s side, stood outside the locker room entrance and smiled at the half-dressed, confused men who stumbled out into the hallway. Once the last guy had been shooed out and an employee was stationed at the passageway between the locker room and the pool, Larrabee and Vivian entered the men’s room.
“What are you looking for?” she asked, scanning the white-tiled room smelling heavily of pool chemicals.
“Check the toilet stalls and the showers for anything that looks remotely off,” he said, standing before the lockers.
“You and I both know that if there was something off about the stalls and showers, someone would have reported it.”
One side of the lockers were the half-sized kind, just big enough to hang a gym bag inside and other clothing articles. The other side, the ones Larrabee studied, were the full-sized lockers. Three of them had key padlocks on them. He went to work opening all the unlocked doors. Vivian joined in, finding each of the ones she opened either contained some pool-goer’s belongings or was empty.
Jake stepped inside and hovered near the doorway.
“You have bolt cutters?” Larrabee asked when they had opened all the others.
Jake shook his head but walked over with a set of keys in his hand. “The locks belong to us.” He checked the back of each lock and found the corresponding key. Once he had each one unlocked, he stepped back.
Larrabee grasped Vivian’s hand as she reached for the nearest handle. “I’d rather you not.” He shook a finger at her when she went to protest. “Humor me, Counselor.”
Grudgingly, Vivian stepped away from the lockers and joined Jake.
Larrabee opened one locker then another. The third one he backed up and hung his head.
“We found Charley.”
Chapter Twenty
Follman was pleased when Dot and T.J. accepted his offer. Dot couldn’t decide if the bemused expression on Follman was from their acceptance or the fact he was setting them up for something. Her suspicions were further heightened when he didn’t even bother to haggle over their demand for a higher payout, per Eriksson’s insistence.
Follman did have a nonnegotiable in the deal. They had to use the helicopter he kept at the airport for the pickup. He also managed the green light for them to fly out immediately.
Follman’s helicopter, a Bell 525 Relentless, while meant for civilian use, couldn’t get much closer to a Black Hawk if it tried. A full row of seats was missing from the cabin, and the cockpit was blocked off from the back by a heavy curtain.
Why would they need seating in the back if drugs were being shuttled over the border?
Then there was another issue when flying the 525 Relentless.
Dot glared at the man tasked with prepping the copter for use and maintaining it. “You do realize I need a copilot.”
He shrugged. “I do what I’m told and that’s about it. If Mr. Follman wanted you to have ’nother, he’d have someone come.” He handed Dot a packet. “Here’s your flight information.”
Dot took the thin envelope and opened it. What the fuck was Follman playing at? These machines were hard enough to handle on a beautiful day with not a cloud in sight. Handicap her with no copilot and if she ran into turbulence or hit a wall with fatigue, they were looking at a downed helicopter.
She read through the single sheet of instructions that gave her the coordinates to the farm where the package was waiting for pickup. And one line of warning—
Stay out of range of radar detection.
Dot was hating this whole operation more and more.
She gave T.J. a hard stare. “Looks like you’re my second.”
“What do you expect me to do? I don’t know how to fly.”
“Start learning.”
Eriksson had warned them to stay off comms and keep to the flight plan. He was certain Follman had the copter wired and rigged with a tracker. Eriksson also directed that when they did talk to not to discuss anything from their personal lives they couldn’t fabricate.
Dot wouldn’t worry about that. She’d have her AC/DC soundtrack blaring through the cockpit and be completely focused on keeping this damn bird in the sky.
By midmorning, they were airborne en route to Challis, Idaho. More specifically, a huge farm northwest of the town nestled in the Salmon-Challis National Forest. They kept their chatter strictly to Dot walking T.J. through how to handle the helo if something were to happen.
As they passed the Idaho-Nevada state line, she deviated to the place where Follman had instructed her to refuel the helicopter. It was a long defunct airfield Follman and his people were able to acquire dirt cheap. He’d warned them to stay in the copter during the refuel. So, after she touched down on a resurfaced landing pad, she and T.J. remained in their seats.
While a bedraggled crew of two refueled the helicopter and did a quick once-over, Dot did her own check. Sitting there afforded their phones a chance to connect to a tower, and both chimed with messages.
Dot stared at the text from Vivian warning her that one of her colleagues had been murdered. A follow-up message from her cousin warned that the hunt had intensified for Cade Porter/Caleb Podolsky, whom they suspected of killing the lawyer.
“Shit,” T.J. said after reading his, then without a word, handed her his phone with a message from Larrabee.
Not only was Caleb suspected of killing the lawyer, he had also broken into Vivian’s apartment. Something her cousin had failed to mention to Dot.
One of the workers pounded on the window next to Dot and gave her the thumbs-up. She returned the gesture and handed T.J. his phone.
“We talk later” was all he said as she put the helicopter back into flight mode.
For the next two hours, she did her damnedest to stay focused on her flight path and not on the fact her cousin had come face-to-face with a trained killer, then couldn’t be bothered with informing her about it. She was going to bitch slap Vivian for that move.
T.J., too, kept his own council. Dot couldn’t tell by his features what he was thinking. Whatever thoughts were running rampant through his head, some of them better be ways to get them out of this mess.
As she drew closer to their destination, the farm came into sight. It looked … empty. There were a lot of buildings and paddocks and pastures, yet there didn’t seem to be any livestock. This time of day and during the summer, horses should be outside. In fact, there was a lack of farm equipment activity as well.
A summons from someone on the ground came through the comms. Dot relayed the required message to grant them unhindered passage onto the property. Cleared by the other end, she directed the copter to the place where the landing pad was located.
